America

Land of the Free, Home of the Brave,

The Land of the Depraved and Enslaved

Where voting is a universal right fought for by centuries of plight

Yet the indifferent forty-six percent have better to do on a chilly November than decide the future of

Their posterity

Your newspapers, televisions, radio, let alone your Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr pages aren’t

                Cut short by Big Brother

The poor rural, urban, suburban youth achieving a promising future is no more an apparition

The creator and curator of free expression

Where being a girl means you can go to school, get an education, become a CEO

But you won’t be paid the same as the guy sitting across from you at the boardroom meetings

 

 

Welcome to America

A land in which those who graffiti outside the hetero-gender defined lines aren’t subject to cruel forms

Of torture rivaling Prometheus

Subjected to forced rape as a quick fix

Or worse…

A country so “progressive” that teenagers resort to ropes hanging from closets and gun shots to the

                Head instead of loving who they are

A story built upon people owning other people just because of a little variation in pigment

Where it took the nineteenth amendment on a piece of parchment for men to realize that their wives

And daughters deserved their equal place side by side

Taken from the rib, not the soles of their feet

 

 

Welcome to America

Where the vulnerability of angles lie in the bullets of a mad man

And the same guns used by military forces roll down the conveyors belts, land in store shelves across the

                Country only to end up in the shopping cart of the next criminally insane

And citizens use the second amendment to block legislation because twenty, five

One death isn’t a wakeup call

Where the top one can line their pockets off the sweat of the bottom ninety-nine, leave nothing

But wreckage in their wake, go to jail to be treated like kings

If they even see the inside of a cell, instead of the usual slap on the wrist

 

 

Welcome to America

Where unlike our royal counterparts, our history, present, and hopeful future is not plagued with wars over whether when you kneel you say Allah, Jesus, Yahweh or nothing at all

A political system where gunpoint military takeover isn’t the welcome mat for a new control of power

The Land the Jew, Muslim, Christian, Atheist, Latino, Black, Asian, Caucasian can sip coffee in

                The pleasantries of any restaurant of their choosing

A land where walking outside your home isn’t a suicide attempt due to the constant trajectory of

                Bullets, missiles, and grenades

Where little babies and children can sleep peacefully without the interruption of dusty amber bomb

                Blasts and screams

Unless you live in an inner city where crystalline cop lights, sirens, and gunshots play your lullaby

 

 

Welcome to America

Where politicians turn to self-deportation like they must have forgotten their roots because unless your

Ancestors had spirits, used the weather as a consultant, were wiped out by European settlers, and forced to relocate, you are the product of an immigrant

A country stolen from natives and taken for bounty

A people so naïve we celebrate this day like the genocide never happened

A government that denounced Hitler yet turned a blind eye to the skeletons that crawled meekly from

                The barracks 

 

 

Welcome to America

A country ravished by wars of mass corruption over allegations of mass destruction

Only to be settled over a negotiation table and the paraphs of a few signatures

Tell that to all the weeping mothers, teary eyed wives whose battle torn souls will never be stitched

                Together by a purple-hearted ceremonial flag

Where created equal is a fallacy unless you believe in a Higher Power because according to what I’ve

                Read and seen

If you’re born into poverty, you’re fifty percent more likely to become a statistic

Equality dependent upon what side of the tracks you live on

 

 

Welcome to America

The tumultuous times, the awe-inspiring peace

The hope, the opportunity, the American dream that never ceases

The American…..Dream

So Americans Dream

Replayed over and given a choice

Do it all again right where I’m at

Even in a country where not too long ago I would have received my education surrounded by black faces

And ten steps behind

In a country where being gay means I can die valiantly for the red, white, and blue

Sacrifice my life but my country says my love is unequal

Yet I’m proud to be American

Because only in America

Land of the Free, Home of the Brave

The Land of the Depraved and Enslaved

Welcome to America